Share this story

Anybody who played on classic cabinets like Asteroids or Lunar Lander in the arcades knows that those games' unique, glowing-line graphics were impossible to replicate on standard TV video game consoles. That's because those and many other arcade games used vector monitors, which use a fast-moving electron beam to draw images made up of sharp, straight white lines on a phosphorescent screen. While these vector monitors have trouble with things like color and solid, filled objects, they can create easy-to-rotate figures that were much sharper and cleaner than the low-resolution raster graphics of the time.

In 1982, a company called General Consumer Electric brought the vector graphics experience to the home for the first and only time with the Vectrex, a short-lived, semi-portable game console that was actually came with a small vector monitor of its own. Now, 30 years later, Rantmedia Games is trying to bring the vector experience home again with Vectrex Regeneration, a remarkably authentic iPad emulator for the largely forgotten system.

Regeneration is a bit of a labor of love for Anton Faulconbridge, who was inspired to pursue the project after seeing an iCade and noting its passing resemblance to the Vectrex he enjoyed so much in his youth. "It's the kind of app that I knew that I wanted and I knew that I would buy in an absolute heartbeat if someone else had done it," Faulconbridge told Ars Technica. But it's more than just nostalgia. "I think if you had a reasonable childhood, you kind of look back and think it was amazing, but that's not the reason here. The games are actually good and I think they actually translate well."

Indeed, the games on the Vectrex are quite different from the other retro gaming collections on iOS, characterized by high-resolution line drawings with smooth rotations and vibrant animations. The Vectrex's 28 game library was primarily made up of thinly-veiled copies of popular arcade games of the time, but what many in the title lack in originality they make up for in pure addictiveness and quality design.

Emulation issues

Enlarge/ Pack-in game Minestorm shows off the Vectrex's unique graphics.

Recreating the sharp, glowing lines of a real Vectrex on a standard LCD display presents a challenge for anyone taking on this kind of emulation project, Faulconbridge noted. "It's a totally unique system, it is so analog, this phosphor screen that kind of pulses, it's almost alive, and it's incredibly difficult to turn something that feels so analog into something that is actually digital."

That said, Faulconbridge adds the display technology on the latest iOS devices is getting to the point where an LCD screen can display lines that are nearly as crisp and clean as a vector display. "The retina displays that we've got now, it's almost the perfect time for this vector system really, because we're finally getting to the point where we're getting closer than ever to the look and feel of the original vector graphics," he said. "I think it's the best out there in terms of the results that you get, and when Apple gives us an even higher resolution screen we'll do even better."

Creating an authentic experience also means replicating some of the Vectrex's less desirable features. Because the Vectrex's oscillating electron beam can only be in one place at one time, there's a noticeable flicker as you watch the system actually draw each frame of the scene at a rate slightly slower than the human eye can process. This flickering is a key component of the authentic Vectrex experience for fans of the original system, but it might be frustrating (not to mention seizure-inducing) to a modern audience without the benefit of nostalgia.

For the iOS emulator, Faulconbridge came to a compromise that lowered the flickering but didn't remove it altogether. "The reduction in flicker is down to using some crazy complicated shader code that persists the lines on the screen for a little longer than they would have been on the original Vectrex," he said. "We wanted to make it as accessible as possible to the widest possible audience. While lots of flicker might be authentic, it's not necessarily something you'd notice missing if it's not there."

And then there are the little bits of retro authenticity that don't come from intentional design, but from the physical vagaries of the old hardware itself. "One of the things that's evident on the original system is, due to the bad design of it, a lot of them will hum—you turn them on and there's this kind of constant hum," Faulconbridge pointed out to us. "We were talking to the guys following us on Twitter and through the web site and we said 'Do you want the hum in there?' and about 95% of them said yes. So we've made it an option. It's not on by default, but you can turn it on if you want it."

Then there are the bits of presentation that had nothing to do with the hardware. Vectrex games came packaged with colorful plastic overlays that were meant to provide the sort of background and border art that the system itself just couldn't produce. Though Faulconbridge said he found peeling and reapplying these overlays to be too much of a hassle in his youth, being able to apply them automatically on the iPad adds something to the experience, to a point. "We had some strange requests: some people saying they'd like to be able to use the wrong overlays on different games.' he noted. "Why would you do that?"

The homebrew community

Nobody seems to know just how many Vectrex units were sold all those decades ago. The system largely flopped at its original $200 retail price, and was quickly being liquidated in bargain bins during the video game crash of 1983. Working units aren't impossible to find these days, and can be had on eBay for about $100.

Some homebrew Vectrex games even use programming tricks to surpass what was possible on the original cartridges, offering synthesized speech or surpassing the 4K memory limit, for instance. "A lot of the original games were done in a very short space of time," Faulconbridge points out. "You'd have the manager come along and say 'you've got to ship this game and you've got a week to do it' where the guys that are doing it now, it's more about pushing things to the edge, and they really are pushing things to the edge of what the hardware is capable of, but they've got time to really perfect it and get it right." Four of these homebrew titles are already available through Vectrex Regeneration, and more will be offered both as free and paid downloads in the future, Faulconbridge said.

With total control of the Vectrex name and branding, Faulconbridge said he's had some thoughts about tracking down some old vector monitors and trying to create a new line of actual Vectrex hardware. For now, though, emulation is also a way to preserve the memory of those games without risking the original hardware. As spokesperson David Tractenberg says, every time he turns on his launch era Vectrex, he worries that "a stray piece of dust has gone in there when I turn it on and it's going to go 'Boosh' and that'll be that... Right now my Vectrex is like a Schroedinger's cat, it's both dead and alive at the same time on my shelf." With Regeneration, Tractenberg says, he can "recreate his vector days as a kid without risking his actual Vectrex."

Share this story

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

24 Reader Comments

Hmm, I'd downloaded this but only played with it briefly. After reading this it makes me want to spring for the game pack. I only briefly played a friend's Vectrex as a kid, but I was mostly an Intellivision guy. Now if only they could fix the controls on that emulator and include every game... Oh and re-release it (gone from the store for whatever reason).

and when Apple gives us an even higher resolution screen we'll do even better.

I just can't see the benefit to a screen that's significantly higher resolution than the iPad 4 if its physical dimensions remain the same. The Nexus 10 has a higher PPI than the iPad 4, so if you really need just a few more PPI to make it perfect, there's your solution.

In 1982, a company called General Consumer Electric brought the vector graphics experience to the home for the first and only time

wasn't that red gameboy goggles thing also vector graphics?

Not vector graphics, but also not exactly a regular pixel-based display. From Wikipedia:

Quote:

The Virtual Boy, which uses an oscillating mirror to transform a single line of pixels into a full field of pixels, requires high-performance LEDs in order to function properly. Because each pixel is only in use for a tiny fraction of a second (384 pixels wide, 50.2 Hz scan rate = approximately 52 µs per scanline), high peak brightness is needed to make the virtual display bright and comfortable for the user to view. The two-screen system demanded a fast refresh rate, unlike the original Game Boy which had blurry motion, so using an LCD was not an option.

I've been waiting for Vectrex on iOS and this exceeds my wildest expectations by far. All that's missing is some homebrew from this guy http://www.classicgamecreations.com and it's better than the real thing. I literally eBay'ed my hardware Vectrex the day after this emulator dropped.

I suppose I should be concerned about long-term software support of an emulator, but that worries me less than having a humming 30-year-old oscilloscope in the house. I really didn't want this piece of retro gaming history to die while in my possession.

Could you do this with a Raspberry Pi, breakout board and oscilloscope?

Don't see why not!

Provided your oscilloscope can handle an X-Y mode (i.e. showing a second input instead of the timebase on the X axis) it should be doable - pretty well all but the most very basic scopes should be able to handle this.

If you scope has X-Y-Z mode (i.e. modulating the beam intensity with a third, Z, input) you should be able to do even better, with a full greyscale (greenscale?!) vector display.

I'm hoping Santa is going to bring me an Arduino for Christmas - I reckon that'd be an easier platform to build this on than an RPi - so I reckon I'll have a crack at this on Boxing Day ;-). Mind you, it's been so long since I fired up my scope (Tek 465B scope fans ;-)) I may spend more of Boxing Day dealing with exploding power supply caps...